The present invention relates to a picture data creating method, computer and program.
In recent years, the amount of data to be handled by an information processing apparatus has been increasing rapidly. To cope with such circumstances, a storage system for storing and managing data externally of the information processing apparatus has been used widely and frequently. The storage system is provided with many disk drives (physical disks). Then, by managing and working these disk drives through, for example, RAID scheme, many logical volumes can be organized on the disk drives, thus providing logical storage areas for the information processing apparatus.
Also, a storage system called NAS (Network Attached Storage) has been developed in which a storage system and an information processing apparatus are connected mutually by using such a protocol as TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) to realize access on file level from the information processing apparatus.
A technique is known in which data of a logical volume in a storage system is copied to another logical volume provided in the same storage system or in a different storage system in order to improve maintainability/anti-fault properties in the storage system as above (for example, see JP-A-10-333838). Further, a technique for copying data stored as file data in a storage system to a different storage system is also known (for example, see JP-A-2002-351703).
If there are many logical volumes and data of a particular one of them is to be copied, there arises a need of designating and setting which one of the logical volumes to a copy destination. Further, data stored as “file data” is sometimes stored in a plurality of logical volumes. In such a case, if particular file data is to be copied, it is necessary to set logical volumes serving as copy destinations without overlap in one-to-one correspondence relation to the individual logical volumes storing that file data. In case there are many logical volumes representing copy sources of data, a person engaged in setting or a setter must constantly take care that a logical volume already set as a copy destination logical volume for a particular copy source logical volume is not set as a copy destination logical volume for another copy source logical volume. Deciding the correspondence relation between the copy source logical volume and the copy destination logical volume is troublesome and difficult and such setting work imposes an extremely hard load on the setter.
In view of the circumstances as above, the present invention has been made and it is an object of the invention to provide a picture data creating method, computer and program.
According to one aspect of the invention, in a picture data creation method for creating, by means of a computer, picture data necessary to display on a display unit a picture in which two or more items and input columns made to be correspondent with the individual items are provided, the input columns are provided for selecting setting values correspondent with the items from a plurality of setting value candidates which can be correspondent with the items and inputting the selected setting values, and the computer has a step of creating picture data necessary for causing the display unit to display a picture in which the mutually different setting value candidates are displayed as defaults in the individual input columns.
The aforementioned “item” may be of any type. When the present invention is applied to the storage system, an identifier of copy source memory volume, an identifier of copy source physical disk, an identifier of primary LU or an identifier of copy source LU, for instance, may be considered as the “item”. The “setting value” is to be correspondent with each “item” and may be of any type. When the present invention is applied to the storage system, an identifier of copy destination memory volume, an identifier of copy destination physical disk, an identifier of secondary LU or an identifier of copy destination LU, for instance, may be considered as the “setting value”. The “computer” may also be of any type. When the present invention is applied to the storage system, a host computer, an array controller, a management terminal, an information processing apparatus, a memory device controller, a channel controller or a disk controller, for instance, may be considered as the “computer”. The “picture data” may also be of any type. For example, it may be a file described with such language as HTML or XML.
With this construction, it is possible to provide a GUI which can alleviate troublesomeness of work by the setter/operator engaged in setting the computer.
To accomplish the above object, a program for implementing the aforementioned function or a recording medium storing that program may suffice.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description of the specification taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.